The Most Suspenseful Movie Ever Made

Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear. Will that nitro blow?

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The Most Suspenseful Movie Ever Made

Masochists, rejoice! Criterion has released a remastered version of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 The Wages of Fear. When a ruthless American oil company needs to transport a ton of nitroglycerine, it hires four desperadoes to drive it across a desolate South American country with bad roads--for a lousy $2,000. Our antihero, Yves Montand, looks like a young, Gallic Humphrey Bogart as he smokes (yes, while driving a truck of nitro) and stares death in the face. Clouzot slowly twists the knife of fear into these characters, and the audience. You'll never look at a pothole the same way again. $30; criterionco.com.